TY - JOUR
T1 - Robust pricing with refunds
AU - Hinnosaar, Toomas
AU - Kawai, Keiichi
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2020, The RAND Corporation.
PY - 2020/12/1
Y1 - 2020/12/1
N2 - Before purchase, a buyer of an experience good learns about the product's fit using various information sources, including some of which the seller may be unaware of. The buyer, however, can conclusively learn the fit only after purchasing and trying out the product. We show that the seller can use a simple mechanism to take best advantage of the buyer's post-purchase learning to maximize his guaranteed-profit. We show that this mechanism combines a generous refund, which performs well when the buyer is relatively informed, with non-refundable random discounts, which work well when the buyer is relatively uninformed.
AB - Before purchase, a buyer of an experience good learns about the product's fit using various information sources, including some of which the seller may be unaware of. The buyer, however, can conclusively learn the fit only after purchasing and trying out the product. We show that the seller can use a simple mechanism to take best advantage of the buyer's post-purchase learning to maximize his guaranteed-profit. We show that this mechanism combines a generous refund, which performs well when the buyer is relatively informed, with non-refundable random discounts, which work well when the buyer is relatively uninformed.
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U2 - 10.1111/1756-2171.12348
DO - 10.1111/1756-2171.12348
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85090139243
SN - 0741-6261
VL - 51
SP - 1014
EP - 1036
JO - RAND Journal of Economics
JF - RAND Journal of Economics
IS - 4
ER -